REVIVAL PT#1 (RENEWAL) / PASTOR NEIL HOPPER

Every believer needs times of renewal and refreshing. We are praying for spiritual awakening and revival for our congregation, community and country. We hope you will join us. Listen and be challenged by Pastor Neil Hopper's message on a  "Summer of Revival" 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome to Celate Christian Center Podcast. Our church exists to see lives transformed through a relationship with Jesus. We pray this message helps you continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior. You can find us online at clc.church.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

And I get that. People are busy and a lot of things going on. But I felt the leading of the Lord to talk to you about something I've never preached on, not once in 30 years, revival. I didn't see myself as a revivalist and I still don't, but I also know when God's people need something. And today I want to tackle that subject from the point of view of renewal. The Bible speaks a lot about renewal, about being renewed in the spirit of your mind, about renewal by the Holy Spirit. So the reason I didn't like the term is I always thought, well, revival is for things that are dead. You give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to dead people. And I'd like to see the people of God, especially people in my own church and my own ministries and family and friends. I don't want to see us as dead and we weren't. But it didn't mean there still wasn't something lacking, or that there weren't times when you weren't drinking of that water, or times that you weren't where you needed to be in terms of your overall spiritual health. And so today I'll use the word revival or renewal interchangeably. I hope that won't hurt your feelings and you won't draw some theological difference with me. I come to believe that Psalm 51, 10 that says, create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me is a heart cry for renewal. If you know that verse, thank you. But if you look at this verse, he says, Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. See if you can give me the next one, Sheila. I think the next one would be good as well. Because here's what we need. He says this. He says, Cast me not away from your presence. More than anything else, we need his presence. Don't take your Holy Spirit from me. Well, we know New Testament-wise, he's not going to just up and leave. Uh He comes to stay. But if you're going to call all the shots and determine what you're doing and what you're not doing, and there's lack of surrender and all those things, it's not that the Holy Spirit isn't there. It's just you're not letting him move. Oftentimes what we need is a move of the Spirit, but we go, I'm as guilty as the next guy. I'm going to try to fit it into 90 minutes on Sunday morning because I'm going to try to get you in and out. And that's okay. You can't stay here to 2 o'clock every Sunday. I'm not expecting you to. I, you know, I don't even like to go on vacation for very long, so I don't like to stay a whole lot of long time. I want to get back to doing normal stuff. But here's the thing: there is a time and a place where you give space to the Holy Ghost. Where you give space to the Holy Spirit. You can't say, we want you to move, but make sure you do it in 90 minutes on Sunday morning. Because what happens is, it's now you're dictating. He's not, you say, have thine own way, Lord. As long as you do it in 90 minutes on Sunday morning, we're good to go. As long as you do it in 90 minutes on Sunday morning, just have your way until you want to go extra. Or you just feel led to spend extra time in his presence. So you have to get up early to do that. Or you just feel like there's something missing. I just need to get with the Lord. I just need what we used to say all the time is, I need to get the mind of the Lord on this. It's because old timers used to know how to, we would pray and say, I need to get the mind of God on this particular situation. But he says here, he says, cast me not away from thy presence. And whatever you do, don't take the Holy Spirit from me. Amen. That's what we need. And to me, this is a prayer of renewal. It's a prayer where you're saying, God, I do want your will, and I don't care how long it takes. So if you were to look at this entire psalm here, now I hadn't really planned, I have a whole nother set of notes, but let's just roll with what God wants to say this morning.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Sheila, let's go up this same psalm.

SPEAKER_02 5:18

And I'm going to just take a few minutes here, what time we have left, and I want to talk to you about there's three or four things where renewal, refreshing, revival is concerned, and why it's important, and why I went from saying I'll never preach on revival to saying we need revival. A couple of reasons. First of all, when you look at history and great revivals in history, they're characterized by two or three different things. First of all, they're characterized by repentance.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

Repentance is not an ugly, nasty word.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

And let me say it like this. Sometimes I'm not asking you to repent from all the bad stuff you're doing. It's you ever heard the sins of omission and the sins of commission. In other words, just things you used to do, but you don't do those anymore for whatever reason. Get busy. So I'm I'm not here to point a finger at anybody and talk about what such a bad person you are, but understand that revival starts when you say, I need to repent. I need to repent and I need God to do something in my life. So it starts with repentance of you opening up your heart and saying, I don't think I am where I need to be. Tell you a quick story where that's concerned. Some years ago, I was fussing about some things that had happened in my life spiritually, and it was somebody else's fault. Okay? I was, it was all their fault. And my dear friend in the Lord, Neil Shaddon, who went home to be with the Lord, I'm just unloading on this guy. We've known each other long enough that he's he's okay with just being himself and straight shooting me. And I'm unloading about all the terrible things, and this is how they did me, and this was wrong. This should not have happened, blah, blah, blah, dah, blah. And he said, You know, I'm hearing everything you're saying, brother. And I admit that that probably wasn't right. But he said, I'm gonna tell you something. You don't have a right spirit about you. He said, So before we talk about this person that did you wrong, why don't we talk about you? And why don't you worry about repenting before God and let God deal with them? You just make sure you keep you where you need to be. Now, I ain't gonna lie, I was a little offended, but he was right. He was right. He said, Don't don't make this about other people. He said, Let's make this about you. He said, If if they took something from you, didn't do something they should have done, you weren't recognized in a certain kind of way, whatever the case might be, he said, God can restore all of that. But he said, you need to keep yourself where you need to be. So revival is oftentimes characterized by repentance. By repentance. Amen. Well, I don't think I do nothing wrong. I think you're terribly deceived. Lori's here and she could testify. I am not perfect, but I am forgiven. Amen. She she would testify. Um but when you start talking about what happens when we're talking about revival, so if if we were to just look at two two or three of the characteristics, you'd say it's it's a returning to not only repentance, but it's it's returning and having a renewal in your spirit. I say it this way: it's like being born again again. When revival shows up in your heart, it'll be like being born again again. And I'm praying for revival. I'm praying that his presence cast us not away from your presence, oh Lord. And he's not going to. But I've had to ask this question, and I'll ask you this question. Where does revival start? Is it, did you initiate or did he initiate? Because the mere fact that I said, God, I need something from you. Something in here said, I need to pray this prayer. Something in me, so was it God who opened my eyes to let me see that I needed to pray this prayer, cast me not away from your presence, oh Lord, renew your spirit in me. Was it God that opened my eyes? Did I initiate this or did he initiate this? I think it's a great question, and I think it's a little bit of both. I think God wants to send revival to this nation. I think God wants to send revival. I think he is raising up people in the next generation that's gonna be revivalists. They're gonna, they're we're gonna see young men and young women. In fact, we should be praying for them right now. As we get a little age on us, we need to start praying. God, raise up the next generation of prophetic voices so that the church has men and women of God who hear from you and declare your truth. Do you know? I just talked to a guy from theological seminary yesterday, had about an hour and a half conversation with him, and he said, Did you know that more and more kids are coming out of high school and they don't even consider ministry at all? That don't want to go, they don't want to go preach. They don't, they don't want to be in ministry. He said, So we're seeing less and less come into theological seminaries. And he said, That's concerning to me. I said, Yeah, I didn't even know that. That's concerning to me. We need men and women who have a call on their life, who will stand up and declare truth and not be timid and shy about it, will stand up and say, This is the way, walk in it. This is God's word. So while I'm trying to help you understand why I haven't preached on revival, didn't mean that I wasn't for renewal or refreshing. See, we always had what's called outpourings. If you've been around here as long as I have, we had outpourings. But just because there's an outpouring, do you know you can live under the rain of an outpouring that somebody else prayed for and still not say within yourself, God, let there be a flow out of me. You're all carriers. You're all carriers of this water. You just got to learn how to tap into that. We all need water from time to time, right? We need to come and be in an atmosphere like this, no doubt about it. But when you begin to see yourself not only as a water consumer, but as a water hose, now all of a sudden you begin to understand the power that you have in you. I need to be refreshed sometime. We all do. But you have a well in you. And I'm going to challenge you over the next few weeks to use it. I'm going to challenge you over the next few weeks to tap in to what he wants to do. It's too easy for us to have to know the right Christian ease, to say things like, Well, praise God anyway, brother. Ain't God good? We know all the right places. Uh I'm not, I'm not asking you, don't act spiritual. I'm not asking you to act spiritual or sound spiritual. I'm asking you to open your heart and say, God, do something fresh and new in me. Do something in me, oh God. So, reawakening of faith, bringing a stagnant church or community back to life, characterized by repentance, prayer, and a renewed passion for God's word. God's word. I'm a word man. I still love God's word. If you don't read God's word, I would almost beg you to get into the Bible and read the Bible. Amen. I've been saying that for 25 years. I still have to challenge myself. Open up the word and don't just read it. Let it read you. Open up the Bible. I still open up the Bible and say, man, I don't know. I've probably read that a dozen times. That kind of, that kind of convicts me, or that that speaks to something I need to deal with right there. I don't even realize it. But that open up, just open up the word. It's characterized by repentance. It's characterized by prayer, a call back to prayer. Some of you, your prayer life, if we were to be honest, your prayer life is all but gone. Amen. And see, that sounds like I'm preaching down to you. I'm not, I'm making you aware that God wants to do something in your life and God wants to renew you, refresh you, whatever your favorite revival terminology is, we need it. We need it. So let's go back to. So when I begin to study this, by the way, I begin to see this. Once you, your mind, you ever had something spiritually where God began to show you something and you didn't see it until you saw it. Renewal and refreshing and revival, uh, because it hasn't been one of the topics, I haven't seen it that way, but once I did, I begin to realize Proverbs chapter 4 talks about it, Romans 12 talks about it, Matthew 11 talks about it, Psalm 51 talks about it, John chapter 4 talks about it. It's all over the place if you can see it. I said last week that we are prone to grow the wrong way. You have flesh, you have desires, you have things going on, and if we don't create a trellis, if we don't create some habits that can cause us to grow in the right way spiritually until you become more like him, until his very image and nature is formed in you, then we have to create an environment to allow that to happen. And we do that by repentance, by prayer, by the word. Think about this. I don't have time to go into all the verses, but think about one of those verses that says, You're clean by the word that I've spoken to you. John chapter 15 says it, Sonia. It says it clearly. He said, You're already clean by the word that I've spoken to you. You're though it's just the word. God's word's still powerful. If I was you, I would declare it over my life. I would pray it over my family.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

So let's look at uh Sheila, let's go back to um so many golly, I um I wanted to, we've running out of time really quickly.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

I I promise not not to hurry, though. I was gonna go, you don't have to go there, Sheila, 2 Kings chapter 7. I was gonna talk to you about four leprous men sitting at the gate of the city, starving to death. I was gonna take you to Nehemiah chapter 8, verses 1 and 2, and talk about how the people gathered themselves together as one man. And they asked for Ezra, they said, Ezra, bring the Bible and just read it to us. Bring the book of Moses and just read it. And the people stood up to hear the word from morning until night. They just, they had rebuilt the walls, they had rebuilt the walls of the city. Nobody had a house yet, but they had rebuilt all the gates and put the gates up and the walls up, and they said, by the time we get to Nehemiah chapter 8, it says they stood as one man. Oh, we don't even have time for that sermon this morning. They stood. So in Nehemiah chapter 8, he says to Ezra, he says, Bring the book of the law of Moses. And it says that the men and the women stood up to hear the word. They had an ear to hear the word. When you open that Bible, have an ear to hear God's word. When you listen to the message, not just mine, whatever message that God's sending your way. Sometimes he's talking to you through a lot of different ways. And you just have to have a heart to hear his word. Amen. Thank you. Yeah, because sometimes you, you know, I might have been in a place a few times in my walk before where I just said, I don't think I want to know what God thinks about that. Okay, so I can be honest and you can. Okay. I mean, y'all ain't never prayed something or thought, I ain't praying about that. I ain't sure I want to know what God thinks about that. As if I was the one in charge. So let's go back to John chapter 4, and let's go up and I'll finish with this because I think it's really good. And I'm I'm already there, and it's such a good passage. So let's go to verse 5. John 4 and verse 5, and I'm gonna finish this, and I'm gonna ask you to pray with us over the next few weeks, because I don't want just revival for you, refreshing for you, renewal for you. I want to see it spread across this county, across this state, across this nation. We need God in America. We need God to do what only God can do. Amen. Yes, we do. Amen. So if you look at this, John chapter 4 and verse 5, then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sikar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave his son Joseph.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

Now Jacob's well was there.

SPEAKER_02 19:55

Jacob's well was there, and Jesus thereof, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well. It was about the sixth hour. I want you to notice that he's giving you specifics of his location. Here's what I want to draw from that this morning. He's giving you specifics. If you were to go there, you could probably come close to finding the exact spot, if not finding the exact spot to this very day. He's telling you this is where Jesus is, this is where he went. The problem with that is sometimes I don't know where you are. I can't sit down. I don't sit down every week and I don't know where you are, but if we could have a candid conversation, I want to know: are you sitting by the well over by where Jacob was? Where are you at? And how hungry and thirsty are you? Next week I think I'm gonna hand out forks and plates and just wonder how hungry you really are.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

I uh where did I go eat the other day?

SPEAKER_02 21:04

There's certain things, even if I've had a full meal, if you offer me this, I'm probably still gonna eat. If you offer me, I could eat a whole steak and baked potato and salad and all that stuff. And if you offer me a brownie, I'm gonna find a spot for it somewhere. If you offer me some ice cream, I don't know how I can still find a spot for it. Lori will say, I'm I'm full, I can't eat no more.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:41

I'm getting that brownie. We're gonna we go. In other words, the for the things that I like, I always find a place for it. You can make a place for a brownie, you can make a place for a bowl of ice cream. I just want you to make a place for him. Amen. I just want you to make a place for him. There has to be a hunger, a little bit of hunger. It is one of the uh also the characteristics of revival is people are hungry. They're hungry. People get hungry. Um let me say it another way. I hate dead boring church. I'd rather be anywhere than dead boring church. I uh thank God for people who can go for form and ritual and they're a lot more uh polished than I am and than we are, but I have no tolerance for just I just I don't want to be there no more than you do.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

Lori says, baby, you've got to go. You the preacher.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

I don't want to be there. I don't, you know. I don't know anybody that uh well, maybe, I mean, around here we don't like dead born church. And I and it don't have to be bells and whistles and and skyrockets every every Sunday, but it don't have to be it, it can be life-giving. There can be the renewing of the Holy Spirit that's constantly happening, where he's constantly renewing and refreshing and reviving you, and and you're sensing his presence and you know his nearness, and you know he's with you, and his word is coming alive in your heart, and you see something that you've never seen before, and you go, I've never seen that before. I've never seen that like that before. You go, all right, keep your heart from all diligence, for out of it flow the issues of life. When you read that, if you're if you're carnal-minded, you think, keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it flows my success and everything that's gonna make me happy, life. It's not what he said. If you see it by the Spirit, you say, keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it flow the issues of life and spirit and vitality and things that will keep you when all hell breaks loose. Keep your heart. Keep your heart with all diligence. So you start seeing the word differently. I'll finish with this and I promise I'll let you go home because I'm gonna I'm gonna go go down just a few verses here, but I have had it with that little Jesus that you know that you were taught in Sunday school that don't match the one in the Bible. I've had it with that Jesus. If you want your Jesus your way, that ain't the one in the Bible. Let's let's preach the one in the Bible. I don't want Baptist Jesus or Methodist Jesus or Charismatic or Pentecost. I want I want the one revealed in the word. I told him Wednesday night, I said, What about this Jesus? He comes walking on, he goes, you don't have time to go there. Mark chapter six, just go there sometime and read it because it'll just blow your mind. So Mark chapter six, Jesus tells them, You get in the water and go to the other side, and I'm gonna send the crowd away. Whole nother sermon about the crowd. We won't talk about crowds and he's sending them away, and we're trying to get them to church. Um, not a bad idea, but notice the difference. He's doing something different than us because once he's done, he sends them, get on up out of here. And he goes up and he begins to pray. And in the fourth watch, he comes walking on the water. Brian, I love this thought, he says, and he would have passed them by. They were toiling and struggling, and the Bible said, This is just the Jesus of the Bible, not the one they taught you in Baptist Sunday school. He sees them struggling. The Bible says they're toiling. They're toiling. So they're toiling. And when they saw him, verse 49 says, walk upon the sea, they supposed it to be a spirit and cried out. They thought a demon came to get them. You don't have to be so demon conscious. He's not a demon. There are demons, he just isn't one. And when they saw him walking on the water, they supposed it and supposed it was a spirit and cried out. For they all saw him, they were troubled, and immediately he talked with them and saith unto them, Be of good cherit, don't be afraid. But the Bible says he saw them toiling, and he was he was gonna walk right by. Let me know one thing. If you'll cry out, he'll show up and get in your boat. Otherwise, I just don't know why he don't come to help me. You ain't even ask. You ain't even asked one time. He sees them struggling in the night, which is a whole nother topic. How in the world is he gonna see them in the middle of the night, two miles out in the Galilean Sea? He wasn't seeing them with the eyes you looking with. He's seeing them with another set of eyes that are eternal. He knows right where you are. And he says, he would have just walked right on by. Would Jesus, would, would sweet little Jesus just pass me by? Well, I don't maybe not, but in this passage, he's gonna, and I think the reason he's gonna pass them right on by according to the, according to the text. And you know why I think it's important? It's important uh because they already had an assignment and knew where they were supposed to go. But if you need help in the assignment or the struggle, the toil, if you look at those verses, you'll find out that what he was saying was, this is a test. If you go back and look at that, he said, This is just a test. You and I can sh I can prove it to you. We don't have time. Get the I wish I could get the message on Wednesday night. He just basically said, This is only a test. The attention signal you just have heard would have been followed by official news, information, or instructions. This is only a test. Sometimes we go through tests. Back to John chapter 4, and I'll finish. So he knows we're very clear on where Jesus was. What I'm unclear this morning is where you are. What I'm unclear this morning is where you are. Verse 6. Jesus, therefore, being weary with the journey, sat thus on the well. It was about the sixth hour. Even Jesus was weary with the journey. Even Jesus, Neil Hopper, whoever you are this morning, we all get weary with the journey. And so what does he do? He sets down on the well and says, Time to have some water. In our flesh we get tired. He's about to answer what you do when you get tired in your flesh. Being weary with the journey, he sat thus on the well. It was the sixth hour. There cometh the woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. But the disciples are gone away in the city to buy meat. Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou being a Jew askest to drink of me? He said, She said, What are you even doing talking to me? Why are you even here talking to me? Which am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews don't have any dealings with us. Isn't it interesting how some of the people you don't even want to relate to? He don't have no trouble blessing them. He don't have any trouble talking to them. People that you you don't even like them people, and he loves them.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:43

She says, You're not even supposed to be over here talking to me. And he says in verse 10, If thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that saith to thee, Give me drink, you would have asked of him. You would have asked me. That's what he's saying. And I would give thee living water. And the woman says, Sir, you don't even have anything to draw when the well is deep. But whence then has thou that living water? She said, Where'd you get that water from, old boy?

SPEAKER_00 30:16

She said, Where'd you get that water from, old man?

SPEAKER_02 30:22

Art thou greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and who drank thereof, and his children and his cattle? You mean she says, You mean tell me you're greater than Jacob? And he didn't outright say it, but he he he might as well have said it, Yep, I'm greater. He said, Because I'm gonna give you something that's about to change your whole life. And he says, Verse 13, Whosoever drinks of this water shall thirst again, but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give unto him shall never thirst. And that water sh that I shall give shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. Can I tell you how I absolutely love that? He said, You'll never be thirsty again. The the uh what version is this? The New Living puts it this way. Let me read it to you from the New Living translation. I'll let you go home, let you go eat, because you got room for something in there, I guarantee you. He said this. And New Living says it this way. The woman said, Give me this water, then I'll never be thirsty again, and I won't have to come back here to get water. Now he's gonna immediately change the subject on her. He's gonna say, Where's your husband? Y'all ever notice how he kind of I mean, he just takes a hard left right there. She's talking about water and drinking and this water being in her. We don't have time to get into the whole summation of it, but he basically says, Where's your husband? She said, Oh, I'm not married. He said, Oh, yes, you have been five times. And the one you living with now, the one you shack in with now, she ain't yours either. He's not yours either. You're not married to him either. Now the old timers would say she's been married to her five senses. She's been married to the flesh.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

She's been married to her flesh.

SPEAKER_02 32:34

She's been married to something that didn't have the ability to sustain her. And he says, I want to give you something. That he's not, it looks like he's just kind of backhanded slapping her and saying, Yeah, where's your husband? You old sinner, you. That's not what he's saying at all. He says, You're in covenant with something. You're drawing from a well that cannot sustain you. The men that you have hooked up with until this time cannot give you everlasting life. They cannot give you living water. They cannot sustain you. Hallelujah. That's really what he's saying. So, bottom line is I'm believing God for renewal. I'm believing God for you to be made brand new again. Renewal. I'm believing for the renewing of the Holy Ghost. I'm believing for verses like, but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, Isaiah 40, 31. I'm believing for verses like, let's go down here to the New Testament and I'll give you a couple. How about this? How about this? Not of works of righteousness which we have done, Titus 3.5, but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing and regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. I need a renewing of the Holy Ghost. He said, How do you save me? He did it by his mercy, not of works of righteousness which I've done, but he said, I need a renewing of the Holy Ghost. How about Colossians? Put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge. How about Ephesians 4, 23, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind? I pray everybody in here is renewed in the spirit of your mind. I don't know if you know how powerful that is. Though your outward man perish, 2 Corinthians 4.16 says, though your outward man perish, yet your inward man is renewed day by day. Think about that. You talk about living water, your inward man is renewed day by day. He promised it to you in his word. Now we don't live like it, but he did promise us that. That's what I'm talking about. That's my prayer for you today. Stand on your feet. Father, thank you for your people. Thank you for renewing and refreshing them. Thank you for fresh water flowing in this church. Let it rain, O God. Even those who'll be watching this later, who'll be listening, let it rain, O God. Open the floodgates of heaven and let it rain. Washing away, bringing every thirsty soul a fresh drink. Let it be so, I pray. Let it be so, Lord God, in Jesus' name. But not one soul would listen, they would leave here, and not sense your presence and power renewing and refreshing them. Just wash us all over. Watch us all over. Don't just wash my feet, wash my hands, my head, wash my whole body. Refresh me, outer man and inner man. Let your will be done. In Jesus' mighty name, and everybody said, Amen, amen and amen. You're just missing. God will have a love.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

You can find us online at clc.church. Our Sunday service begins at 1030 a.m. And our Wednesday evening Bible study begins at 7 p.m. If you'd like to contact us, our telephone number is 770 748 5750.